With the introduction of Linked Parts in Finale 2007, MakeMusic changed their philosophy behind how Finale fundamentally handles parts in relation to a score. One of the best changes ever to Finale - yes. The problem was that they didn’t let anyone know just how much they had changed the normal work-flow of Finale. MakeMusic had made a mistake and they knew it. How can we tell that MakeMusic knows they made a mistake? They acknowledged it with the release of 2008 and the little piece of paper that was slipped in with the upgrade discs. Much like the introduction of Linked Parts, the combining of the Mass Edit Tool and Selection Tool was no trivial matter. But, unlike the release of 2007, MakeMusic was quick to explain the how and why they made the change. With Linked Parts there was no piece of paper. We got an upgrade and a list of new features. They did not let the user know that extracting parts would no longer work as it had for the past decade. To this day - over a year and some months since the release of Linked Parts - we still get questions from clients about missing multi-measure rests and added measures that are a reduced size. We were glad to see the piece of paper explaining the selection tool change. We were glad to see MakeMusic not only listening, but responding.

Here are the few important points that we use when dealing with parts in Finale 2007 and 2008 - we’ll call it the philosophy of Linked Parts:

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